Racism and Sexism Unnecessary

Jen Psaki, perhaps a living embodiment of the Peter Principle, once was a very good press secretary for President Joe Biden and now is a very, very bad host on MSNBC. Here she is commenting on the effective round of interviews Vice President Kamala Harris had following the President's atrocious debate performance.

Jen Psaki blames sexism and racism for why people don’t like Kamala Harris

No Jen, people just think she’s retarded

And btw, you’re ugly

pic.twitter.com/8ied9jwYfD

— Drew Hernandez (@DrewHLive) July 11, 2024

Psaki states that Harris "is like, in my view, and undervalued talent. Um, she's a very fierce communicator. She's very strong, especially on one of the core issues that the election may be won or lost on, which is abortion rights." She noted that she had watched the debate "on the set" with other MSNBC personalities and  

after the debate, I was like "that was great." I said "yeah." That's what she's doing out in the country and nobody's tracking it.  It's almost like public opinion has not caught up with what she's doing out there. And also, we live in a country that's sexist and racist.

This country has a problem with sexual and racial bias. However, there are other reasons- or should be- that Kamala Harris is unpopular.  A week before Harris was announced as Joe Biden's running mate in August, 2020, The Crime Report summarized an article published a few days earlier by the American Prospect, which noted that the V.P. hopeful had

openly defied U.S. Supreme Court orders to reduce overcrowding in California prisons while serving as the state’s attorney general, reports the American Prospect. Working with Gov. Jerry Brown, Harris and her legal team filed motions that were condemned by judges and legal experts as obstructionist, bad-faith, and nonsensical, at one point suggesting that the Supreme Court lacked the jurisdiction to order a reduction in California’s prison population. Judges seriously considered holding the state in contempt of court. Observers worried that Harris’s office had undermined the ability of federal judges to enforce their legal orders at the state level. The resistance to a Supreme Court ruling was aimed at preventing the release of some 5,000 nonviolent offenders, whom courts had cleared as presenting next to no risk of recidivism or threat to public safety.

Despite a straightforward directive from the Supreme Court to identify prisoners for release over a two-year period, the state spent most of that time seesawing between dubious legal filings and flagrant disregard. By early 2013, it became clear that the state had no intention to comply. Harris refused to comment to the Prospect, which reviewed in detail the events leading up the 2011 Supreme Court ruling that required a reduction in the California prisoner count. In the 5-4 decision, conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy joined the court’s liberals, condemning the state for facilitating “needless suffering and death.” Under Attorney General Harris, the state delayed compliance, and by 2012, a report surfaced that proved the state actually intended to increase its prison population.

The American Prospect reported that the Supreme Court a 2013 ruling on the case included

“defendants have repeatedly found new and unexpected ways to frustrate this Court’s orders,” the three-judge panel decried, and “used this Court’s patience and good-faith attempts to achieve a resolution as an excuse for protracting these legal proceedings to a time that could hardly have been imagined.” Harris’s work on that case alone would likely disqualify her from a shot at a federal bench or Supreme Court appointment, Cohen opined.

Harris’s use of the anti-desegregation playbook to prevent the release of low-level offenders ultimately failed. Finally, in 2014, the state acceded, and the prison population was reduced.

This was probably the most egregious- but not the only- behavior of the Attorney General's office under Kamala Harris designed to bolster her political viability in the pre-George Floyd era. If Harris were nominated for President, the GOP, contemptuous of the courts and other institutions, might not exploit the actions of a state attorney general dedicated to improving her image as a "law and order" advocate. 

Fortunately, she did not later reverse her approach and embark on a path to condoning lawlessness, which Republicans would be more anxious to use to their benefit. Or perhaps she did, as six or so years later, as she was being considered by Joe Biden as a running mate, she knew how to ride the wave of revulsion at the murder of George Floyd.

If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota. https://t.co/t8LXowKIbw

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) June 1, 2020

The 2018 tax filing of the Minnesota Freedom Foundation, an organization committed to paying the bail of accused offenders

shows it raised only about $100,000 that year. Just weeks after Floyd’s death, it raised an astonishing $35 million, in part because of tweets such as the one by Harris, who is now the Democratic vice-presidential nominee. That influx has put a strain on an organization that at the time had only one full-time staff member.

According to an accounting by the American Bail Coalition, verified by The Fact Checker with a review of Hennepin County jail records, all but three of the 170 people arrested during the protests between May 26 and June 2 were released from jail within a week. Of the 167 released, only 10 had to put up a monetary bond to be released; in most cases, the amounts were nominal, such as $78 or $100. In fact, 92 percent of those arrested had to pay no bail — and 29 percent of those arrested did not face charges. (The American Bail Coalition is a trade group of insurance companies who profit from underwriting bail bonds.)

Probably few of the individuals who sent money to the MFF realized that most of it would not be used to secure the release of black lives matter protestors. However, few of the donors had been the chief law enforcement officer of a state and only one would be promoted by (MSNBC host) Nicole Wallace and others as someone who could prosecute the case against presidential nominee Donald Trump because of her legal background. Fortunately, there is no one case the GOP could blow out of proportion- oh no, say it ain't so:

A Minnesota bail fund championed by Vice President Kamala Harris helped free a repeat felon now charged with murder.

The Minnesota Freedom Fund on Thursday acknowledged it helped secure the release of Shawn Michael Tillman, who in May shot and killed a passenger on a rail platform in St. Paul. Harris promoted the Freedom Fund on Twitter during the George Floyd riots in 2020, helping the group raise $35 million in a matter of weeks, according to the Washington Post.

Freedom Fund executive directors Mirella Ceja-Orozco and Elizer Darris defended the group's decision to post Tillman's bail in a statement Thursday, saying, "It is neither just nor effective to respond to violence by denying bail and preemptively punishing people who are disproportionately poor, Black, brown, and Indigenous."

Tillman's criminal record includes multiple counts of indecent exposure, as well as assault and unlawful possession of a firearm, court records show. He is now in custody with bail set at $2 million.

Tillman was convicted of first degree murder, second degree murder, and illegal firearm possession and sentenced four months ago to 60 months for the illegal possession and to life without parole for first-degree murder. 

Kamala Harris wasn't responsible for SM Tillman, any more than Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis was responsible to the rape committed by Willie Horton. Yet, the Willie Horton issue, exploited relentlessly by conservatives, was probably more responsible than anything for the victory of George HW Bush over Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election.

Nonetheless, Kamala Harris' checkered record on criminal justice is ripe to be exploited by the GOP, were the vice-president to be nominated for the highest office in the nation. It illustrates also that if Jen Psaki and others from the race and gender left attempt to impugn criticism of Harris as misogynist or racist, they are- generously speaking- acting from a position of ignorance.

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